


anything that's mended is but patched

by tabacoychanel



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Exhibitionism, F/M, Possessive Behavior, Sexual Content, big "i want my bride back" energy up in dis club, jon warns the entire city of braavos "hands off my bride" that's it that's the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:07:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24610531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tabacoychanel/pseuds/tabacoychanel
Summary: "Griff didn’t deserve that.”“No,” Jon agrees. “I don’t know him from Adam. I just don’t like to see anyone look at you like that.”“Like what?”“Like I do.”
Relationships: Jon Snow/Arya Stark
Comments: 11
Kudos: 105
Collections: Jonrya Week: A Dream of Spring





	anything that's mended is but patched

Bran has a theory about dating apps. He says they’re not designed to connect people with compatible partners so much as to suck up their time and attention on the platform, and every time Arya logs in to one she curses her baby brother’s precociousness. It doesn’t matter that Bran’s right; what matters is if finding a datable man in Braavos is like hunting for a needle in a haystack, doing it _without_ an app is tantamount to doing it blindfolded.

It would be worse if she looked like Sansa, she knows. If she had Sansa’s hair and Sansa’s skin and Sansa’s affinity for the camera, she’d have fifty men a day messaging her instead of fifteen. Of those fifteen, there will be three who claim to be twenty-nine when they are more like thirty-nine, one whose profile picture features a close-up of his crotch in a speedo, and one whose profile picture is literally Chris Hemsworth. Arya has not had many occasions to be grateful she’s not beautiful like Sansa, but this is one of them. Men lose their heads when it comes to looks.

If she had gone off to a normal school like Robb and Sansa she would have had no trouble meeting people her own age, but the House of Black and White is not your run-of-the-mill university. The student body skews older, there are no teeming lecture halls, it’s all individualized one-on-one or small group instruction. Some people graduate in two years and some take ten. It’s not what Mom and Dad wanted for her, and Arya had to fight tooth and nail for it, but she knows the southron schools of Westeros are not for her. Plus she would have walked barefoot over hot coals before she enrolled in the same school as Sansa. Braavos is her chance to prove them all wrong. She has to make a success of it, which includes not just her studies but her social life.

Sansa urges her to treat dating like a job. This is probably why she only talks to Sansa twice a month.

Arya is as surprised as anyone when she finds herself on her third date with Griff. He’s funny, and kind, and he compliments her eyes. Most importantly he does not bore her to death. He takes her to restaurants that are nice but not too nice and he pays the bill without fuss and he hasn’t even propositioned her for a threesome with his ex, which is what happened the last time she went on a third date with a guy.

When she asks him about his hair he tells her he dyes it to honor his mother's memory. His smile warms her. It does not quicken her pulse, but it’s genuine.

“Your mother had purple hair?”

“Everybody in Lys has seaweed for hair.”

Arya says, “When I was twelve my mother wouldn’t let me wear my hair short so I turned it the most appalling shade of pink and after that she had no choice, she had to let me hack it off. My brother helped with the hair dye.”

“This is the brother who’s in business school? Or the brother who’s going to be an astrophysicist?” grins Griff, and suddenly she doesn’t find his smile disarming at all. Something constricts in her stomach.

She changes the subject.

Later, when they’re strolling along the canals with cones of ice cream in hand, she asks him how long he expects the Golden Company to remain stationed in Braavos.

“The contract is for the rest of the year. After that we’ll see,” he shrugs.

The civil unrest in Astapor and Meereen is coming to a boiling point, anyone with half a brain can see that. Mercenary soldiers go where the fighting is.

Griff says, “You’re not worried about starting something that has no long-term prospects?”

“What, you’re not going to ask me to be a military wife?” Arya mimes a stab wound to the heart. “I’m kind of surprised you’re not taken, to be honest. You’re a decent guy. There aren’t too many of those.”  
  
“Could be I’m not trying very hard,” says Griff. “Could be you know something about that, too.”

A denial flutters in Arya’s throat. How dare he suggest she’s not serious about this stupid dating business? Why would she pour so much energy into it when it’s such a chore? “Maybe,” she snaps, “some of us have a more limited dating pool. We can’t all be ten out of ten.”

“I … thank you for the compliment but who told you you weren’t a ten, Arya?”

The answer, of course, is Sansa. Not Sansa herself—it’s the way other people react to Sansa. Sometimes Arya feels like she’s made of glass, that people look past her, look _through_ her and see Sansa. Everyone does it at one point or another. _Everyone except Jon_ , whispers a small voice.

Griff is right about one thing: If she really wants something long-term why would she be going out with a contractor who’s only passing through the city?

“I think,” says Arya reluctantly, “we should decide what we are to each other.” She hates this, the defining-our-relationship talk. Maybe that’s why she never lets her relationships get this far.

Griff can sense her agitation. He opens his mouth to speak and that’s when she hears footfalls behind her and catches the familiar woody scent of Jon. Arya will never know if she summoned him with a thought or whether he’s just always known what she’s wanted before she does. Either way he is here, wrapping her in a bear hug, and her skin is too tight and her heart too full to say anything.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says, the words muffled against the top her head. He drops a kiss into her hair and straightens to take Griff’s measure. “Plane was delayed.”

If Arya had known Jon was coming to Braavos she would have gone to the airport to meet him, and she would have gone an hour early. She can hardly admit as much to Griff, however. She feels hot and cold all over. “Sorry, Jon, this is Griff.”

Griff meets Jon’s scrutiny with no answering animosity, merely a single arched eyebrow. “And you are?”

“I’m her brother.”

A wolfish smile curves Griff's lips. “You’d be the one who’s in line to take over the family business?”

“No," says Jon, flatly. Not _No, that's Robb_ or _I'm in the army, actually_. His arm is still wrapped around her waist. Griff looks like he's scented blood.

“You’re a little old to be the astrophysicist,” he says, and he doesn’t sound intimidated. He sounds _amused_. His eyes glitter under the lamplight. Arya has told him about Bran’s accident, so he can’t be under any misapprehension that this could be Bran. “But you haven’t asked who _I_ am. I’m the one who took your sister to dinner tonight, did you know? We were going to see a movie.”

“I’d better take a rain check,” Arya says quickly.

Jon, who has been glaring hard enough to vaporize the back of Griff’s skull, snarls, “She’s not going anywhere with you.” The rough edge to his voice causes something to stutter in her chest.

Griff nods to himself, satisfied, as if some pet theory of his has just been confirmed. “In that case I’ll leave the movie tickets with you, Arya. If everybody had a brother like yours I’m afraid girls would stop going on dates.” And with a nod toward Jon and a swirl of his trenchcoat he is gone.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?!” she explodes as soon as Griff is out of earshot.

“Whoah, if you stop clinging to me like a barnacle I’ll tell you,” he laughs, and her arms lock even tighter around his neck and he swings her around once, twice, three times. She’s pretty sure the fizzy bubbles of elation in her stomach precede the spinning.

The Night’s Watch has sent Jon to Braavos on a recruitment mission. They’re putting him up in a hotel, which is convenient because Arya has two roommates. _Convenient? Girl, get your mind out of the gutter_ , she chides herself. A traitorous voice retorts, _Did you hear the way he told Griff to back off? I’m not the one with my mind in the gutter._

“How did you find me, Jon?”

“Instinct.” They are only three blocks from her apartment, where her dad and Jon helped her move in at the beginning of the semester, but still, it’s uncanny.

She bites her lip. “You didn’t have to—Griff didn’t deserve that.”

“No,” Jon agrees. “I don’t know him from Adam. I just don’t like to see anyone look at you like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I do.” He tangles his fingers in her hair and she tries not to arch into it, every nerve ending in her body screaming for Jon’s touch. He says, “When’s the movie start?”

“What?” sputters Arya. “We haven’t gone to a movie since you took me to see _Frozen_.”

“Twice,” he reminds her, grey eyes twinkling. “You complained Sansa talked straight through it the first time.”

It isn’t a thing the two of them do, go to the movie theater. They go hiking and they get five-dollar burgers and they haul a different strategy board game in front of Bran every other week. They’ve watched plenty of movies together from the comfort of the couch, Jon’s head in her lap or vice versa. Arya shies away from the other things they may have done on the couch on the rare occasions they had the house to themselves.

If she thinks it strange he does not ask what movie the tickets are for, it becomes clearer once they slide into their seats and he slips his arm around her shoulder.

She says, “The trailers haven’t finished. They haven’t even dimmed the lights.”

“I’m not here for the trailers,” he tells her, breath warm on her ear. He presses a lingering kiss to her temple and Arya knows she is in major trouble.

There are other people in the darkened theater, but not so many of them that she can catch more than a glimpse of the backs of their heads. Jon and Arya are in the very back, of course. His hand has lifted the hem of her blouse, his thumb stroking the sides of her breasts above the wire of her bra.

“Jon, what are you _doing_?”

He leans down, runs his tongue along the soft cartilage of her ear and Arya has to stifle a gasp. “What’s it look like? I’m taking you on a date.”

“What if someone—uff—sees?”

“You’ll have to be quiet, won’t you? Or you’ll get us kicked out.”

She knows how to be quiet. Every time she and Jon do this it is a shameful secret, fumbling in the dark, panting each other’s names and shaking with silent release, isn’t that the way it’s always gone? Quick, let’s hurry, finish before Dad comes along, or Mom or Robb or whoever. Always poised on the edge of catastrophe. Does she even know how to have sex without the fear of discovery looming over her shoulder? She certainly doesn’t know how to have sex with anyone other than Jon, that much is abundantly clear.

He says, “Do you remember that time things were crazy at home and we couldn’t get away so we went downtown and found the swankiest handicap-accessible restroom in the ritziest department store in the mall, and you sucked me off in there?”

Warmth floods her at the memory—or maybe that’s just the effect of him kneading her breast. “There was a lady with her two little kids when we came out. She was banging on the door. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life.”

“Mmmm," agrees Jon. "You’re unbelievably hot when you’re embarrassed.”

She’s trembling—from what emotion she doesn’t even know. What surprises her is that putting an ocean between herself and Winterfell does not wash away any of the shame or guilt. She says, “I thought we agreed to stop.”

“We agreed you needed to come to Braavos. For your education. I don’t think I can stand to see you with another man, Arya.”

“Is _that_ what this is about? You saw me with Griff and now you need to what, reclaim your territory?”

“Exactly,” and the scrape of stubble against her cheek reminds her of the times she’s felt that stubble on her abdomen, the inside of her thigh, the arches of her feet. "What was I supposed to tell him, Arya? That I was your _boyfriend_?" That would not have been true. It was also inadequate. It is primordial, this thing between them. It does not admit of distinctions like _dating,_ or _brothers_ and _sisters_.

She sucks in a sharp breath.

“Shhhh, little sister, gotta be quiet,” he reminds her, and the words merely stoke her desire until it’s boiling out of her blood.

It’s no surprise he can play her like a harpsichord—Arya’s body is a map Jon has been studying all his life. When he finally palms her entrance, even if it’s through a layer of denim and underwear, she has to bite her tongue to keep from keening.

She wants to reach over and fist her hand around Jon’s rock-hard cock. She wants him to keep kissing her throat until the sun goes supernova. She wants, she wants, she wants. The thing about wanting Jon is she can’t remember when it started and she suspects it’s never going to end.

He unzips her jeans and snakes a hand beneath her panties to find her preposterously wet. His breathing is ragged. “That’s my girl,” he says approvingly, one finger dipping inside her like she’s an inkwell. “Cotton white panties, huh? You weren't planning on giving it up to Griff tonight?"

Arya furiously mouths her denial and Jon chuckles low in his chest, the vibrations rippling up her arms. "So tight, so wet for me. Did you know your pussy was made just for me?”

“ _Jon_ ,” she hisses, only it comes out as a series of frustrated growls.  
  
“I can’t hear you. Tell me again.” He’s plunging one digit into her needy, weeping slit when he knows perfectly well she needs at least two, she needs him to spread her open and fuck her raw. His thumb drags across her clit at unpredictable intervals but that’s it and she needs more, she needs him.

“Jon, _please_.”

“Tell me who this pussy belongs to,” he says, implacable.

“Oh my god you are the literal worst.”

“You want me to stop? You want to finish this at the hotel?”

She is going to set his phone on fire. Possibly his Xbox. If he doesn’t fill her up within the next thirty seconds she may actually combust from frustration. “Yours, yours, your pussy. It’s all yours, I’m yours, now _please_ for the love of god _fuck me_ , I am begging you.”

He kisses the tip of her nose. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? I always take care of my girl.” And he pulls her onto his lap.

She had thought he might shove another finger in her, or drop to his knees and finish her off with his mouth. But this is rank insanity. This is—there are _people_ present, and none of them are deaf or blind. If they're caught they're done. Somehow the force of Jon and Arya's collective desire overpowers these considerations. It’s always been like this: Once they begin they can’t stop.

She undoes his fly, yanks his boxers down and his cock springs up and the heat of it is intoxicating as she cradles it between her palms. It’s been _so_ long. She notches the head of it between her lips and sinks down and she’s home again, like this empty space inside her is made to fit Jon and Jon alone.

“Arya,” he grunts. “Sweet Jesus, I missed you.”

“I need—“ she says.

“I know.” He’s petting her hair as he thrusts into her, his cock coated in the slickness of her arousal. The wet slapping noises of their fucking coincide with the staccato stutter of gunfire from the film. His cock is the key that unlocks her and her hips are more or less on autopilot, snapping forward of their own accord, and when she feels him pulsing within her walls she thinks _sonofabitch didn’t even last a full minute_ but of course she’s right behind him. She’s wanted to fuck him since—since—she doesn’t know, can’t remember, sucks a bruise into his neck to muffle the moans in her throat.

The film is still going. It feels like the world has ended, and Arya is new made, and the film is _still going_.

The sun has gone down and the air is chilly. On the walk to the hotel Jon makes her wear his leather jacket and tucks her hand into the crook of his elbow, just as if he’s walking her home from the bus stop when she was in grade school. She knows the line of his jaw and the slope of his shoulders, the timber of his laugh and the asinine memes he likes to share on social media. She will never know anyone the way she knows Jon, with whom she’s never had to define their relationship because they just _are_.

Jon is still mad about Griff. “He didn’t believe I was really your brother. You told him about Robb and Bran, Rickon too I bet, but you never talked about me.”

The truth is, talking about Jon is painful because being apart from Jon is painful. “I don’t do this,” she flicks a finger against his ear, traces the hickey beneath it, “with Robb or Bran or dear lord”—she gives a hiccuping snort— “Rickon.”

“I thought it might be because you don’t consider me your brother. Anymore.”

Because of the DNA test, he means. Because he’s not really her father’s son, he’s Aunt Lyanna’s son. Her cousin. For Arya the word _cousin_ conjures the image of a small boy with leukemia in a hospital bed in the Eyrie. _Cousin_ and _Jon_ don’t track.

By the time the truth about Jon’s parentage came out it was too late to make any difference—he was halfway into his ten-year tour with the Night’s Watch, where he enlisted the day he turned eighteen. _Cousin_ has not thawed her mother’s icy coolness toward Jon, and it has not lessened Arya’s attachment.

She says solemnly, “Don’t worry, you’re in my top four favorite brothers.”

“Relieved to hear it,” laughs Jon.

“Professor H’ghar says I’ll have my degree in three years—four max.”

He looks pensive. “Do it in three. That’s when my tour is up. I’ll get a bonus with my discharge. It’s not much but, well. You’ll have your degree.”

She thinks about what it will be like, not having to hide how she feels about Jon. No more sneaking around, no more stabs of guilt or remorse. It’s not that she will ever stop caring what her parents think, but she may learn to assign their opinion less weight.

“When’s the last time you went to confession?” she asks Jon.

Jon shoots her a disbelieving look. Confession is for southerners. In the North they keep the old gods, which do not require intercession from intermediaries.

She says, “I went with my mom five years ago. It was one of the high holidays, and she was so pleased I went with her, and the entire time the only thing I could think of was you. What you do to me.” She shivers. “I haven’t been back since.”

“Arya Stark, if you are accusing me of derailing you from the destiny of a proper southron lady, that is one thousand percent horseshit and you know it,” declares Jon.

“Ugh. I’m accusing you of being the only one who loves me _because_ I’m not the lady I’m supposed to be, not in spite of it, dummy.”

That’s the crux of it. She has never doubted her worth to Jon, even when she doubted the very ground beneath her feet.

“Oh, well, sure,” he says, mollified. “Just so long as nobody else finds out how lovable you are. No more dating apps, you hear? They issue us these sidearms in the Watch and I can’t promise not to use mine on the next Griff.”

Somehow, Jon is even hotter when he’s murderous. She leans against him, burrows into his chest and mumbles her assent.

**Author's Note:**

> When I started writing modern AUs I set them all in the real world, no imported Westerosi places or institutions. This is obviously not the tack the majority of the fandom has taken. Well, here I am changing with the times! I don't know what's going on here I just tried not to overthink it because I'm sure you all came for the smut. Arya going to Braavos is hard to transpose onto a modern context because in canon she has no other choice--her _first_ choice was the Wall, after all. And Jon being raised with yet apart from the other Starklings is hard to justify without the whole inheritance/bastardy thing. In conclusion I wrote this in one day unbeta'd sorry for the plot holes!


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